Janie, dear, that means you don't go to work and you get to play all day and you get paid for it. You see, Amos is actually a soldier who gets paid to help overthrow other countries' governments. Amos likes doing that, so it's play to him. So his "vacation" means that we should watch for a "revolution" in Belize. Then Amos will come home and be with Mom and talk with his friends about helping to overthrow the elected Belize government.

I'm not the one sneaking off the some low dive in Belize to drink cheap rotgut rum with those who would shanghai Mother Theresa and sell her into white slavery in an opium den in the slums of the Barbary Coast or Liverpool or somewhere. No sir, I will continue here, working and making Life Better for the residents of Pocatello and the Pacific Northwest, so that those in SoCal can continue their frivolous, sybaritic lifestyles that are built upon the backs of honest working men and women elsewhere in the country so they can continue to grind the workers into the mud with the heels of their iron-shod boots.

"A life-sized fiberglass cow has been stolen from a sidewalk in La Jolla, organizers of an art auction said today.

The cow was part of CowParade La Jolla, an art exhibit and fundraiser for Rady Children's Hospital San Diego and the San Diego Zoo. Forty cows designed and painted by local artists are featured in the exhibit, which started March 15 and will continue until June 15. An auction is set for July 11.

The swiped cow is thought to be worth $5,000 and $10,000 at auction. The cow thieves "are taking money right out of the hands of two worthy organizations," said Bill Trumpfheller, president of CowParade La Jolla.

Thirty-three of the cows are on the streets and plazas of La Jolla, others are at a nearby shopping center. Anyone with information on the theft is asked to call the CowParade hotline at (619) 881-3371 or the San Diego Police Department at (619) 531-2000.

-- Tony Perry "

I have witnesses. When this was going down I was nowhere near La Jolla. I was on Mudcat, far away!!

Inviting Rapaire to water the shrubbery could only mean one thing to his perfervid imagination.

I appreciate the offer, but must decline as I have made other arrangements.

I leave tomorrow evening, fly through the night. Saturday morning I shall take a short flight from Charlottesville to Belize City. Anyone who happens to be in Charlottesville Douglas International at 6:04 in the goddamn morning can watch me stagger off the plane and crash in the lounge for a 3 hour layove. It promises to be very exciting!! :D

Sounds like a plan to me. Do you think we could trick him into buying our air fare to San Diego so we could perpetuate our plan? I dunno, maybe we could offer to keep an eye on the place while they are gone? Water the shrubbery or something?

Amos, I ain't gonna have ANYTHING to do with putting an automatic transmission in! They suck!!! A stick has faster acceleration and hits the shift points faster. If you can't drive a stick stay off the track!

Hell, after all of that work I guess we'll have to get out the steel wool to work off the rust spots and repaint this sucker. Do you have any leftover house paint or do you want to take it down for one of those $99.99 auto paint specials?

Rapaire promised he would do the tranny this afternoon--he's looking at a speed shifter four with hydromatic coupling. I keep telling him what he wants is the top of the heap- Pro-X trans used in NMCA and NMRA but does he listen? Well, we all know the answer to that.

She'll be cruising in no time, driving about 2200 horses on a dropped frame with high-lift shocks. Sexy, too.

I was talking of REAL sincerity. The sort that makes young males utilize knotholes for immoral purposes, that makes them scream in agony from the splinters and the subsequent venereal termites. Ain't nothin' more sincere than venereal termites! "Hoss" Pequere came down with them, and the doctors up at the Legion couldn't even do anything. Seems like he'd picked them up in a petrified forest and as they destroyed his "vitality" they also turned it to stone. Danged shame, but he did work at a traveling sideshow for awhile, exhibiting himself as a model of Hell's Canyon, "The Wonder Of Idaho". Mind you, he didn't have much "vitality" to start with. He passed away on a visit to the State Prison (to visit his kinfolks); he was walking by a bunch of prisoners "making little ones out of big ones" and they made a natural mistake. What's left of poor ol' Hoss is part of the gravel walk at the old Warden's House -- the walk to the outhouse. Folks at the Hovel say he would have wanted it that way, but they're not sure.

I saw MOM out push-starting that old pickup of hers at the grocery store parking lot this morning. The driver of the Lays Potato Chip truck helped her push it back and forth across a "V" shaped set of inclines until it started. Wasn't one of you boys going to put in a new starter motor? I already changed the oil and the air filter and rebuilt the brakes.